The present invention relates to a gas lighter, and more particularly to a gas lighter with a locking device to prevent the gas lighter from being unintentionally ignited.
A gas lighter commonly used at present is an electric igniter using combustible gas, such as butane and natural gas, as a fuel. It can generate a flame usually by means of pressing the operative actuator directly by the fingers and permitting the piezoelectric block in a piezoelectric device to spark so as to ignite the combustible gas. Without a locking mechanism in the lighter, the operation of the actuator is not restricted, so that an unintentional operation of the actuator, such as an error operation, an operation by the infant, or some unintentional collision by a hard thing acting on the actuator, can easily ignite the combustible gas in the lighter, which will hurt the infant or damage the public safety. In addition, when an external force unintentionally acts on the actuator, the outlet valve will be opened, and then the combustible gas is leaked off, so that there is a potential risk due to the leaking of the combustible gas. However, in everyday life, such igniter has been widely used in many cases where an ignition is required. As described above, most of the commercially available gas lighters are dangerous if they are operated carelessly, particularly by young children. The inadvertent ignition of such gas lighters has resulted in fires causing property damage and injury to people. Therefore, there is a need for a lighter with a locking device that prevents inadvertent ignition of the gas lighters, and in particular makes it difficult for the children to operate the lighters.
Gas lighters sold in commerce are now required by federal law to have locking device to prevent young children from being able to ignite the lighters. It is desirable to increase the difficulty of operating the lighters so as to limit the young children under five years of age to operate such piezoelectric lighters. This remains, however, a need in the art for other mechanism, which increase the difficulty of unintentional operation or operation by unintended users, and at the same time are user-friendly for intentional operation by intended users.
A lighter of the above-mentioned type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,358, wherein the locking device is a safety member cooperating with a blocking ridge for the piezoelectric device when the locking device is in its locked position in which position said device cannot generate a flame. However, after each ignition, the locking device is restored to its locked position by means of the spring force of the additional resilient element provided in the lighter, which results in the complexity of the assembling operation and the increase of the manufacturing cost.
In fact, in the generally available gas lighters with a locking device, the locking device can be reset automatically by the elastic force of a spring device after each operation of the ignition mechanism of the gas lighters. Therefore, such lighters also involve the additional elastic elements provided therein, which also results in the complexity of the assembling operation and the increase of the manufacturing cost.
There is another kind of lighter with a locking device in the prior art wherein the locking device is restored to its locked position after each ignition by the resilient force generated by deforming a resilient element such as a plastic element. In such lighter, the resilient force generated by means of deforming the plastic element itself will be reduced due to the frequency of using the lighter. Finally, the locking device will fail to work efficiently because the plastic element can not be resiliently restored to its original form.
It is a purpose of the present invention to provide a gas lighter with a locking device, which reliably prevents ignition of the lighters when the locking device is in its locking position.
Therefore, the present invention proposes a gas lighter with a locking device of a novel design. A lighter with a locking device according to the present invention comprises: a housing for containing a fuel, a piezoelectric device and an outlet device in said housing, a spring in the piezoelectric device, wherein the piezoelectric device comprises a piezoelectric rod operatable to spark and an actuator co-operated therewith, the outlet device comprises an outlet valve and a lever operateably coupled to said outlet valve so as to open and close said outlet valve, said actuator being provided above said piezoelectric rod and said lever to open said outlet valve while sparking by said piezoelectric rod with sufficient voltage to cause a spark and ignite a vaporized fuel releasable from said housing through said outlet valve, said actuator having a top surface, characterizes in that said piezoelectric rod is provided with a case which forms a step for the piezoelectric rod, a locking device is pivotally coupled within the inner chamber of the actuator via a shaft, said locking device is of q-shaped, the upper end thereof is protruded out of the upper surface of the actuator through an opening in the actuator, the middle portion thereof abuts against a top cap of the piezoelectric rod, and the lower end thereof normally abuts against the step of the piezoelectric device by means of the resilient force of the spring provided in the piezoelectric device.
The gas lighter with a locking device according to the present invention can be used more convenient compared to the lighter described in the prior art because it only concerns the pivoting motion of the locking device about the actuator, but not the movement of the entire actuator.
Furthermore, the pivoting motion of the locking device according to the present invention is more difficult to achieve for an unintended user of the gas lighter compared to the simple translation motion used in the lighter of the prior art.
The locking device of the present invention has a lower portion which can cooperate with a step of the piezoelectric device in order to lock the actuator when it is subjected to a conventional force applied by any user to operate the gas lighter.
The locking device is of q-shaped. The top portion of the locking device is flattened and curved to prevent unintentional operation by a child, while permitting an adult to easily unlock the locking device so as to ignite the lighter.
According to the gas lighter with locking device of the present invention, the top end portion of the locking device is grooved and/or embossed to facilitate its use by a user. This groove and/or emboss has a general V-shaped cross section with an upward directed opening and which is slightly tilted to the longitudinal direction so that one of the sides of the V shape is aligned with this direction.
According to the gas lighter with a locking device of the present invention, the locking device is pivotally coupled within the actuator via a shaft. The shaft comprises an orifice passing therethrough to receive the axis of the locking device. The axis acts as a pivoting axis for the movement of the locking device in the position shown in FIG. 3. The pivoting axis is arranged perpendicularly to the longitudinal direction. Thus the locking device is fixed to the actuator via its axis.
The locking device is integrated with the actuator by a projection of the locking device and/or its axis. Under the action of a first force, a pivoting motion is made towards the top end of the device to which a second force is applied to displace said actuator from its locked position towards the unlocked position, wherein the locking device pivots about the actuator so as to change its position.
The side-middle portion of the locking device acts as a cam and contacts with the top cap of the piezoelectric rod. The case of the piezoelectric rod forms a step, and the end portion of the locking device contacts with the step in its locked position, wherein said lighter cannot generate a flame.
In order to move the locking device from the locked position to the unlocked position when the lighter is placed in vertical position, the user must move the locking device by the first horizontal force applied by the thumb, thus the end portion of the locking device can be disengaged from the step. The locking device is in its unlocked position, wherein said device can generate a flame, and at the end of the movement, the actuator of the gas lighter must be pressed to ignite the gas lighter by the second pressing down force applied in the adjacent region by the thumb so as to press down the actuator by changing the direction of the forces applied by the thumb without changing the position of the thumb. When the above-mentioned external force is missing, the locking device can be reset to a normal locking position wherein said device cannot generate a flame by the force of the piezoelectric rod.